'By Design' Review: Juliette Lewis Is a Chair in a Surreal Comedy

By Design is not a film that asks to be understood. It is a film that insists upon its own surreal, stylized logic, where human bodies and designer chairs become interchangeable, where privilege is an aesthetic and loneliness is the price of being coveted. Equal parts black comedy and satirical fever dream,By Design takes the absurd premise of a woman swapping bodies with a chair and stretches it into a broader, biting critique of consumerism, performance, and the transactional nature of relationships in a world ruled by wealth and image.